LAC Occasional Paper Series

18 items available

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https://hdl.handle.net/10986/18023
The LCSSD Occasional Paper Series is a publication of the Sustainable Development Department (LCSSD) in the World Bank’s Latin America and the Caribbean Region. The papers in this series are the result of economic and technical research conducted by members of the LCSSD community. The series addresses issues that are relevant to the region’s environmental and social sustainability; water, urban, energy and transport sector development; agriculture, forestry and rural development; as well as cross-cutting topics related to sustainable development such as climate change; logistics; crime and violence; and spatial economics. While all papers in this series are peer reviewed and cleared by the LCSSD Economics Unit on behalf of the Director of LCSSD, the findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper, as in all publications of the LCSSD Occasional Paper Series, are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed in any manner to the World Bank, to its affiliated organizations or to members of its Board of Executive Directors or the countries they represent. The World Bank does not garantee the accuracy of the data included in this paper and accepts no responsibility for any consequences of their use.

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Author: World Bank × Subject: AIR MARKET × Subject: AGRICULTURE × Topic: Agriculture × Topic: Industry × Item Type: Publication × Has files: true × Supported Language: en × Start date: 2012 × End date: 2012 ×

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    Agro-Logistics in Central America: A Supply Chain Approach
    (Washington, DC, 2012-06) World Bank
    This chapter uses supply chain analysis (SCA) to identify transport and logistics bottlenecks that add costs, times and uncertainty to the exportation of perishable agricultural products from Central America. Macro-level analyses of logistics performance, including the logistics performance index, Doing Business Reports and Enterprise Surveys of the World Bank, as well as the Global Competitiveness Index of the Global Economic Forum, often leave policy-makers unclear on exactly what poor performance means for exporters and producers in Central America. How does poor road quality eat away at the profit margins of my country's producers? Extensive procedures add time to export processes, but how much time? How and to what extend does this additional time hurt the competitiveness of key industries? How does this effect vary by product type? By tracking the movement of seven carefully selected exports, these supply chains complement macro-level analyses by answering these questions for some of the region's key agricultural exports. A range of unique characteristics makes the success of perishable exports exceedingly dependent on the efficiency of the related logistics systems and the ability to connect effectively and reliably to global supply chains. Remote production zones add cost, time and variability to transport from the farm gate to the distribution, collection or processing center. Increasingly complicated international sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS) add institutional and procedural complexity to the supply chain. Above all, the time sensitivity of most perishable products increases the value of time and makes cold chain infrastructure and the availability of refrigerated containers essential for successful exportation.